


Little Birds

by Dyce



Series: Little Birds [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adoption, F/M, Toast Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3118241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dyce/pseuds/Dyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During her recovery after the war, it occurs to Katniss to wonder what has become of Rue's family, those little dark birds...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Birds

It took months for me to recover enough to even ask the question. Months more to find out. But only a week after that, I open my door to a flock of little dark birds. 

Rue is dead. Their parents are dead. But three of Rue's siblings somehow survived the war. On a cold morning in late fall, Sage, Call and Lark are delivered to me by a tired-looking woman in a medic's uniform. I don't look at her too closely - she reminds me of Prim. Instead I kneel in front of them, so that they don't have to look up at me. "Do you remember me?" 

Sage is the oldest remaining child, a solemn boy of ten. He looks at me, then whistles Rue's call. "You were in the Arena with Rue." 

"You put flowers all over her," Call adds. He is as fragile-looking as the others, slight and dark and birdlike, but there's a set to his jaw and shoulders that speaks of unchildlike resolve. "You cried when she was dead." 

Lark says nothing, hiding behind her brothers and staring at me with huge dark eyes.

I nod. "She was my ally," I say quietly. "And she was my friend. I would have saved her if I could have." 

They all nod. They agreed to come here, or so I have been told. To come to me. My throat tightens, and I stifle the tears with the ease of long practice. "Do you know why I volunteered to be in the Games?" 

Call nods. "Because of your sister." 

"Yes. She was the same age as Rue." I sit back on my heels. "I talked to Rue about you, all of you," I say quietly. "She worried a lot about you. She was the oldest, like me. The oldest has to look after the younger ones, we both understood that." They all nod slowly, watching me. "But now Rue is gone, and she can't take care of you," I tell them, my voice tightening and cracking a little. "And Prim is gone, and I have no-one to take care of. I won't make you stay if you don't want to - but I think Rue would have wanted me to take care of you. For her." 

They watch me for a moment more, then Sage steps forward to put a small hand on my shoulder. "You took good care of Rue in the Arena," he says quietly. "You gave her a lot of food when you didn't have to. I guess you'll take good care of us too." 

i nod, my eyes burning. It's stupid to get sentimental over it - they got pulled out of whatever the District Eleven version of the Community Home is to be brought here. There might be more food now, but I bet orphans get last and least, just like always. They're not stupid enough to give up a real house with only four mouths competing for food, whether they like me or not. But it still matters to me that they choose to stay. 

I put them in the room that was once my mother's - they don't want to be separated, not yet. The big bed is more than roomy enough for three little kids, and they'll feel safer together. 

By the time they've unpacked the one bag of possessions they still have - a few clothes, a picture of their parents, a few other odds and ends - Peeta has arrived. He brings over freshly baked bread, full of herbs and wild garlic and seeds. I have some soft cheese to spread on it - though I can't get anything as good as Prim's used to be - and their dark eyes are as round as saucers when they're each given two whole slices to themselves. Lark can't finish hers, and bursts into tears. 

I understand those tears. I understand how distressing it is to finally have something good and not be able to eat it. I kneel and put my arm around her shoulders, and she's as tiny and delicate as Prim used to be before Dad died. "It's okay," I tell her gently. "We'll wrap it up and save it for later. You can have it with some stew tonight, okay?"

She nods, and I can feel all three relaxing at the suggestion there will be more food later. 

There will be. I had trouble bestirring myself to take care of myself, but having Rue's brother's and sister to take care of is different. They are children and they need to be provided for and I find that, as with Prim so few years ago, their need drives me in a way my own cannot. They are not replacements for Prim, any more than I am a replacement for Rue or their parents. But I know it would have pleased Rue to know that they're taken care of, that this is the payment of my debt to her that she would have chosen.

I hadn't realised how happy it would make Peeta. He brightens so much, with children around, and within a week he is all but living in my house. He gives Lark rides on his shoulders, tries to teach all of them how to bake, and soon has Sage following him around like a solemn little shadow. 

Call, to my surprise, prefers me. It isn't two weeks before he's following me when I go hunting, learning to walk quietly and how to set snares. He takes to fishing with enthusiasm, never seeming to get bored with it. One day I go for a long walk to where I hid my three spare bows years ago. I have never gone to check if they were still there - I couldn't bear to. But now Call helps me to carry them home. One is warped and useless, but the other two - one adult-sized, one the little one my father made for me - are salvageable. Call is too small for it yet, but I promise I will teach him to use it as soon as he's big enough. In the meantime, I teach him to throw knives. 

Lark stays with Peeta and Sage while Call and I hunt, proudly exhibiting lopsided rolls and stick-figure drawings when we come back. When I'm home, though, she creeps up close to me, watching anxiously. Like Rue during our training sessions, she hovers around me, there whenever I look around. 

I know why. She's afraid I'll disappear. Like her parents. Like the sister she probably hardly remembers. I am the only person who wanted them, after the war was over, and she can't bring herself to believe in my permanence. So I don't complain about being watched, even though the feeling of eyes on me still bothers me sometimes. Sometimes I draw her in to sit with me, showing her the book Peeta and I have begun work on, or figuring out how to braid her thick, springy hair. 

Haymitch has little to do with them, though he's friendly enough. Children, little ones, aren't his field of expertise. 

I wake them with some of my nightmares, but they seem to understand without needing explanations. And one night, when I hear crying from their room, I go in and find myself with Lark on my lap and the boys leaning against each side of me while I sing 'Down in the Meadow'. I didn't think I could ever sing that song again, not after Rue and Prim, but for them I can. 

Peeta suggests a small celebration for New Year. "Nothing big," he says quietly, glancing at the three kids sleeping in a pile on the sofa, like puppies. "But something." 

I look at them, remembering my father buying an orange for New Year, or making little squiggles of precious maple syrup in the snow that hardened into candy. He always managed something. And after he died, I did, for Prim. "For them," I say slowly. I don't want to celebrate yet. I can't imagine ever celebrating anything again. But they need it, the reassurance that their lives can be a little bit good again. "What did your family do?"

For a moment Peeta's smile is as soft and warm as it ever was, back before the Games. "We'd get presents... not big stuff. My father would get me pencils every year, and some paper, so I could draw. And one year I got this bright red scarf, I think..." 

I find myself smiling, which startles me a little. "I remember that scarf. It wasn't bright-bright red, it was kind of cherry red, with fringes." 

He looks at me, and it makes my throat tighten. I don't even know what we are to each other yet, after everything, but when he looks at me that way I feel as if I'm back in the Quarter Quell Arena, aching with that too-late realisation of everything he meant to me. "You remember that?" 

"I remember a lot of things. You weren't the only one who paid attention." I look down at my hands. "Presents are good. And some kind of special food. My father always got us a treat for New Year." 

Peeta nods. "We could have Haymitch over too," he says thoughtfully. "And a frosted cake - I don't know if they've ever even seen one. I remember that," he adds, his eyes shadowed. "It's funny, that was something that I always remembered. Frosting. Everything I didn't know, everything they took away... I always remembered frosting. How to make it. How to use it. Exactly how to mix the colours. I guess they didn't think it mattered." 

I'm not surprised when he goes into a flashback a few minutes later. But when he comes out of it, shaking and sweating, he manages a weary smile for me. "We'll do something good. For them." 

We do. A few days before I bring down a deer, the first in a long time, and Call is sure he helps me pull our improvised sled home. Not that we can manage the whole thing, but the hide and both haunches make it back on the first trip, and we hang the rest up in a couple of trees and come back for it the next day. It's mostly there.

Peeta makes plans with the kids for New Year, telling them he'll roast the venison and some potatoes, that they can eat as much as they can hold of meat. The cake he bakes in his own kitchen, as a surprise. 

I have surprises of my own. Doctor Aurelius approves of my decision to reach out to Rue's siblings - I'm sure he's the one who told the people in District Eleven I was stable enough to handle kids. When I talk to him about New Year, he agrees that it's important. He's the one who selects gifts for me, warm coats and scarves for each of the kids in bright colours that aren't the muted, greyed shades they're used to. That we were all used to, before the war. Colour was for the Capitol, or at least for people rich enough to own a bakery and wear a hint of red. They deserve something pretty. 

I wake up early on New Year's Day, hearing shrieks of delight from down the hall. The moment I open my door Lark flings herself at me, her rose-pink coat dragged on over her nightgown and the pale blue scarf in her hand. "Thank you, Katniss!" She hugs me tightly around the waist. "It's the prettiest thing I ever had, ever! And so warm!" She is in tears when she finally pulls away, but I think they're happy tears. 

Sage and Call are almost as excited. They needed the heavy coats - it's much colder in Twelve than they're used to - but the colours are something extra. Something special. Sage's coat is deep blue, his scarf pale yellow. Call's coat is cherry red, the same colour that Peeta's scarf was, and his scarf is green. I had to ask Peeta what colours they liked - I never know these things. 

They run out and play in the snow without feeling the cold, and in the afternoon I take some maple syrup from Seven and show them how to make squiggles in the snow. Peeta joins us, and makes little flowers and birds that it's almost a shame to eat. 

That alone would have been special enough for them, I think. When we go in afterwards to the kind of dinner that they couldn't have imagined at home, as much roasted venison as they can eat, with potatoes and gravy and piles of green peas that Peeta must have ordered specially... I enjoy the food more than I have anything in a long time, but watching them eat is better. I remember Rue telling me she'd never had a whole groosling leg to herself before, and have to leave the table for a minute.

Peeta waits until I come back to bring out the cake. It's not too big or elaborate - I don't think either of us wanted to be reminded of Finnick and Annie's wedding cake - but it's beautiful, just like everything he makes. It's grass green on the sides, with little flowers, and on the top there's a picture of three little dark brown birds in a nest. 

"It's us," Sage says quietly, looking up at Peeta and then at me. "But you're not there." 

"That's because the cake is for you, the three of you. Your present from me, for New Year." Peeta lays a hand on his shoulder. 

"You should be there too." Lark looks upset. "You and Katniss." 

"Next year." It's not until everyone looks at me that I realize I'm the one who said it. "Next year Peeta can put all of us on the cake. If you want." 

"Yes." Call moves around the table to lean against my shoulder. "We should all be on the cake next year." 

"Damn right." Haymitch, who has hardly drunk enough to make him tipsy, gestures at the cake. "So are we going to eat that or what?"

It's a milestone. After that, Lark stops following me around and Call and Sage get better too. They seem sure, now, that they belong here. They feel, if not safe, then safer. 

When I realise that, I dither for a few days and then barge into Peeta's kitchen before breakfast. "You should live with us." 

He stares at me, cup of tea halfway to his mouth. "What?" 

"It's a big house. There's plenty of room." My face is hot and a large part of me wants to run away, but I'm not going to lose my nerve again. How much between us would have been different if I hadn't let myself run away instead of saying the things to him that needed to be said? "You cook most of our meals anyway. And the kids would like having you there." I swallow hard. "So would I." 

He puts the cup down very slowly. "Are you sure it's safe?" he asks, his voice painfully uncertain. "For them, I mean. And for you. I still... remember, sometimes." 

"So do I. My nightmares don't seem to worry them. And they know you have flashbacks." I shrug, shoving my hands in my pockets so he won't see them shaking. "You're around us all the time. Sleeping in the same house won't make any difference except that you won't have to carry food across the way every day." 

"Well, if it's going to save me a few dozen steps every day..." He smiles slowly, and when he looks up at me I make myself meet his eyes. No more cowardice. "Thanks, Katniss," he says quietly. "I'd like that." 

The kids like having him in the same house. So do I. It's shortly before the first thaw that he first comes into my room to comfort me when I wake screaming, and when I beg him to stay until I go to sleep he does. After that, he comes in every time. When he has his flashbacks, I am right there to tell him 'real' or 'not real' when he comes out. 

In true spring, when the flowers are out, I turn to him and kiss him when I wake up beside him. He kisses me back. 

By summer, my room has become ours. The kids must have noticed, but none of them say anything. When kisses become more than that, when Peeta and I share our bed in more than the literal sense, when I tell him that my love for him is real, pulling away even to get up is almost unbearable. We're so late for breakfast that I know they've noticed, but aside from a lot of giggling they don't let it show. 

Our toasting is in late summer. It doesn't matter to me - what do words, even those words, mean compared to what Peeta and I have been through? But it matters to him, and it's another something-special for the kids. We make Haymitch sing. 

On our second New Year, all five of us are on the cake - three little brown birds all sitting on the back of a very nervous-looking fox, while a fluffy yellow dog noses them affectionately. It's silly, but I like it.

The year after that, Haymitch makes an appearance as a dissolute-looking lynx. The kids love it. 

The year after that, Peeta calls me in to consult on the frosting. "I was going to put an egg, but I'm not sure." His arms are around me, his chin resting on my shoulder as I look through his sketches for the cake. His hands rest on my stomach, where the subject of debate is about to pass the three month mark. 

I was so terrified by the idea that I threw up, the first time he brought it up. But I have spent more than two years now raising my new family. Children who have been hurt, who have lost, but who are thriving now. Sage cooks almost as well as Peeta does, and they're talking about opening a bakery when he's a little older. Call is going to be at least as good a hunter as I am. Lark, our little bird, hasn't decided yet what she wants to be, but she's beginning to show signs of a ferocious intellect. 

I am still terrified. I have nightmares every night. But the kids have blunted the edge of my fear. I have let myself love them, and they're all right. No cruel fate has snatched them away. And if something happened to me, I know they would take care of my baby the same way I took care of Prim. And Peeta is so good with kids. He will be such a good father. I can do it for them. For him. And once I knew I was going to agree, I wanted to have the baby now, before the kids got too much older. Sage is already twelve - I was providing for my family at twelve. 

"Maybe we should all be birds this year," I say slowly. I'm not sure I'm ready to face another mockingjay, though. 

"I don't know. I don't want it to seem as if we're pretending we're their parents." Peeta reaches past me to poke at the sketches. "They've always liked the different animals." 

"Well, if you hadn't made *us* different species..." I frown. "Are you sure the cake's the best way to tell them?" I wouldn't let him tell anyone, not even the kids or Haymitch, until the first three months passed. I was too afraid of something going wrong. Now, though, they need to be told. 

"Yes. You know they like the whole family being on there." He kisses the side of my neck then draws away while I'm still shivering. Tease. "All right, what about... hold on, where's my pencil..." 

It only takes him a minute to sketch it out. A dog with three little birds on its head, and the lynx - how on earth does he make it *look* like Haymitch? - all peering through tall grass at a fox curled up in a hollow, a tiny fluffy fox kit peering out from under her chin. "I'll put in summer flowers, to show when it'll happen," he says hopefully. 

I feel sick with nerves again, but I nod. "That works." 

He holds me through screaming nightmares that night, and when I cry into his chest he whispers promises for the future. That he will be here. That he will always love me. That our family will live in a better world. 

When they see the cake, Sage and Lark are thrilled. Call has a jealous fit and sulks for weeks, which bewilders Peeta but makes me feel oddly better. I understand jealousy, and I don't mind taking the time to reassure him that having a baby doesn't mean we don't want them. That I don't want him. I assure him that if it wasn't for all of them and *especially* him, I wouldn't have been able to do it at all - who would I count on to hunt for our family when I'm incapacitated by birthing, if not him? He's using my old bow now, and his snares are almost as good as mine.

By the time my son is born, even Call is excited. Consultations over a name take weeks, but we settle at last on Beech. It's a plant name, like mine and Prim's, and it's a tree common in Twelve. Beeches are strong trees, hard to cut and long-lived, not fleeting and fragile like a katniss root or an evening primrose... or a mockingjay. 

I still have nightmares, and so does Haymitch. Peeta is still haunted by flashbacks, and Sage and Call and Lark by their own horrors. But Beech has a family who love him, who will do anything to protect him. That's not always enough, but it's something. 

It's something good.


End file.
